*2 4 OF INSTINCT. SECT. XVI. 14. i. 



quicknefs. They thus get fifh into their throat-bag, which they 

 cat afterwards on more at their leifure." P. 247. 



Another curious effort of defign, or ufe of means in animals, 

 is related by Abbe Grofier, in his Defcription of China, Vol. I. 

 p. 562. A kind of tiger is feen in China, which has a body 

 like a dog, but no tail, and is remarkably fwift and ferocious. 

 If any one meets this animal, and to efcape from his fury climbs 

 up a tree, the tiger immediately fends forth a loud yell, and feve- 

 ral other tigers arrive ; which all together dig up the earth round 

 the roots of the tree, and overturning it, feize their prey. 



The rattlefnake and black ferpent of America alfo ftiould here 

 be mentioned, which are fuppofed to poflefs an inftinctive pow- 

 er of fafcinating birds , as many birds have been feen repeatedly 

 to run to them and to retreat from them with piteous (creams, 

 till the fnake has feized and devoured them. I formerly fuf- 

 pected, that this ferpent had hid himfelf in the bufhes, and had 

 fecretly wounded the bird, and followed it with his fteady eye, 

 till the poifon inftilled into the wound had time to take effect ; 

 and that the bird then fell from the tree into his mouth. But 

 from an ingenious paper, which Dr. B. S. Barton, Profeflbr 

 of Natural Hiftory, in Pennfylvania, has favoured me with, and 

 which will be publifhed in their Philofophical Tranfaclions, it 

 is clearly (hewn, that this piteous cry, and approach, and retreat, 

 of the bird fuppofed to be fafcinated, is fimply an attack made 

 by the female bird on the ferpent in defence of her young ; 

 which credulity and the love of admiration has converted into a 

 prodigy of fafcination, which is dill credited by the multitude 

 in America. This circumflance of the mother bird daring to 

 defend her young from a ferpent, till (he was devoured by him, 

 and her fcreaming around him, is defcribed by that great ob- 

 ferver of nature, the immortal Homer, above 2000 years ago. 

 Iliad. Lib. 2.1. 310. 



XII. The knowledge and language of thofe birds, that fre- 

 quently change their climate with the feafons, is ftiil more ex- 

 tenfive *, as they perform thefe migrations in large focieties, and 

 are lefs fubjet to the power of man, than the refident tribes of 

 birds. They are faid to follow a leader during the day, wjio is 

 occafionally changed, and to keep a continual cry during the 

 night to keep themielves together. It is probable that thefe 

 emigrations were at firft undertaken as accident directed, by the 

 more adventurous of their fpecies^j^jtearned from one another 

 like the difcoveries of mankind in navigation. The following 

 circumftances ftrongly fuppo^^H. opinion.^ 



i. Nature has provided thflH Imals, in*the climates where 

 they ate produced ? with anotHiM 'efource, ^vhen the feafon be- 



^fim- .^r comes 



